What is your school sun cream policy?

[Frankie789]

As the title really, what is the policy at your DC school?

Are they expected to wear it all day and not re apply? Are they allowed to re apply themselves? Appreciate most will be in a classroom but we’re at a school that have an outdoor classroom which they encourage to use.

DC in reception so first experience but not allowed to take their own to re apply due to allergies in the classroom so will apply before school though I’m nervous of the days they are in breakfast and afterschool club as that is a long time without!

So what cream will last 9 hours (7-4) and will stand up with hand washing / mouth wiping!

Our school doesn't allow reapplication during the school day, but DC attending after-school club are allowed to keep sunscreen at school to reapply there.

Ours do not let you bring in suncream. Apply thickly just before you enter the school gates. But our children also have to wear school uniform baseball caps outside throughout spring and summer which helps to keep them covered/

Our school does allow the children to reapply at break times but they have to do it themselves. I send them with one of those stick ones as they are the least messy.

My DC aren't allowed to reapply at school at all and they're in breakfast and after-school club. I use the boots all day one which seems to work well and they haven't burnt yet. I do break the rules and send suncream in on swimming days and request they at least do face, neck and arms. Not sure if they actually reapply it though.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/do-once-a-day-sun-creams-last-all-day-a9IzA3X1pyMz

They’re only outside for certain short periods of the day though! One application is fine. They can wear a hat which protects the neck as well. 100’s kids reapplying themselves is overkill.

Our school doesn’t allow suncream so I use the Boots Once and she hasn’t burnt yet. She’s only out for part of the day and she does have a cap with her that the school are pretty good at reminding children to wear. I’m on the Mediterranean coast so our summers are pretty fierce and it’s been OK so far. I do import the Boots Once cream every year though. About to stock up this week in a trip to the UK.

not sure on the policy but we use calypso once a day

Ours is apply before school and not bring in. It's fine for my DC as they don't burn easily but if I had a paler child I would probably challenge it.

At pre-school we had to send in a named bottle of suncream and sign a form to allow the staff to apply it to the youngest kids.

No rules about re-applying at ours. I send them in with the roll-on ones to go over faces before breaks.

I use suntribe mineral suncream and it stays on the skin like glue (in a good way!) found it really good

Ours is apply an all day cream before school. We use P20 kids or Ultrasun.

Ours can take it in but I barely trust my Y4 to reapply it properly let alone my reception age child and I don’t actually know if the teachers help, probably not as it doesn’t seem realistic that they can manage to do a whole class… So I just use the once a day stuff- there’s P20, boots own brand etc.

We’re expected to apply before school and it last the whole day. We also use calypso once a day, applied at 7am, never had any issues with our fair skinned kids burning. They usually wear a cap if out playing sport.

Ours can take it in but they have to do it themselves, and they prefer it’s applied before school so the odds of my kids remembering are slim. I use the ultrasun factor 50 one ( mostly because DD seems to be allergic to any of the cheaper ones), but put it in a solar buddy for her. If she’s not at the childminder applying before school is fine.

applied before they come to school and reapply as needed with their own bottle. We don’t have a school supply! Teachers can’t really help do it as there’s so many of them but will encourage them to reapply. The odd few that have issues at home get sent to the office on a morning and I do it and we use some that the teachers donate and I help the children apply it.

Ours was (DS year 8 now but in primary) could re-apply as often as they like, but they had to

• apply it totally themselves so a) no-one had to touch them and b) the teacher didn't have to help 30 kids which would have taken her an hour at 2 mins per kid, and it might have taken longer!
• bring their own so that it was parents responsibility to get one that the kid wasn't allergic to or anything!

our children are told to apply at home and then school supply sun cream to reapply at lunchtime. It’s made clear that children must apply it to themselves. They can bring their own roll on bottles if preferred.

Right from reception the rule was apply before you come in, bring a hat that shades face and neck and if they need to reapply then they had to do it themselves. We bought the roll on stuff and spent time showing DD how to put it on properly and make sure she covered everywhere and rubbed it in.

Thanks all! Mixed results on rules.

Im absolutely not expecting school to apply sun cream but I’d have thought children were allowed to reapply themselves during the day / lunch to top up. I’ll look at the recommended creams as applying at 7am and hoping it lasts until the UV is no longer high can be a long time

Also ask what accommodation they have made for reception children who are often on free flow, so in and out of the classroom during most of the day. Eg does the reception class area of the playground have shaded areas where activities can be laid out for the children to use.

We're asked to put it on in the morning. We don't use the once a day stuff as it's awful for your skin and brings mine out in rashes so it's pointless as it's not effective by lunchtime. I put a small travel size one in their bags and they do it themselves. (And I know they do as they are the ones that nag me about it!)

Same here. The Boots 8 hr one has always been fine. All children need to wear hats too.

Our policy is can take it in but the kids have to apply it themselves. My daughter is Y5 and i don’t trust her to do it properly especially when she’s losing a bit of playtime to do it, hence using the once a day stuff.
Those that can do it, the boots brand kids suncream sticks are good. Though on hot days chill them overnight so they don’t go too soft.

I had so many discussions with the school about this. Their policy was kids went to school with suncream on and they weren’t allowed to bring it in. Might be fine in principle, does ok for morning break but by lunchtime it was next to useless and most of the time if they were doing outdoor learning it tended to be later in the day. I pointed out the ridiculousness of it when they refused to even move the policy on sports day. It started at 1.30 and the kids were outside for a couple of hours, running about getting sweaty. I was told kids couldn’t re-apply suncream. I sent my daughter with cream and told her she absolutely should and told the school she would be. Even at 5 years old, they are quite capable of doing it with a little supervision.

We always default to “teachers can’t” “too many kids” etc, but schools need to take the risks seriously. Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the U.K. and it is on the rise. There has been an increase of 32% in the last decade. It’s all very well to say people have used an all day sunscreen and there have been no problems, but the fact is, the exposure in younger years is a determinant of skin cancer in later life. It makes me laugh when I hear people losing their shit about Asbestos being found in schools, buildings being closed, despite the fact that in 99.9% of cases it poses absolutely no risk. People going mad because their child had to walk through a cloud of smoke for 2 seconds. Parents in uproar if there is a mobile phone mast within 20 miles of a school etc. And yet they wholly accept a situation where a small bit of inconvenience to the school is deemed more important than the health of the children.

Fair skinned children in particular are at risk. As the parent of a fair skinned child, I wasn’t about to take the risks and told the school what I’d be doing.